my pocket to leave
matters with MacGrath to manage. I can not see," I said with some heat,
perhaps helped by the brandy I was drinking, "why in heaven's name I
shouldn't go on a cruise if I desire to! If I'd ties of any kind, a
wife or children----"

This was Pitcairn's chance, and he broke my talk to take it.

"Your friend Carmichael has both, and to them his first duty lies." And
any one with his wits about him can imagine the rest of the talk, for
he fell into an attitude of strong disapproval of the whole plan;
stating in a cold legal way that Sandy had already let me in for more
than one trouble; had caused me to spend large sums of money, foolishly
doing the like himself; that we were both incapable of good husbandry;
given to drinking more than was wise, and over fond of the society of
persons whom we were pleased to call men of talent, but who were, by
his judgment, doggerel-making people, of loose morals, with no respect
for fact, the conduct which became the general, or the laws of Christ.

He went over for the twentieth time Sandy's arrest for pulling off most
of the door-knockers in Edinburgh; this event having occurred when the
lad was but sixteen and home for the vacation; as well as the scandal
of his having bid the Lord President in a high and excited voice to
stick his head out of the window, and upon that venerable gentleman
complying, shouting: "Now stick it in again!"

At the end of this discourse he invited me to remain at home with him
and spend the evenings over a new treatise on the Laws of Evidence
which he had just brought from the University, at which I laughed in
his face and told him that I had neither the wit nor the inclination
for such an enterprise. His last words were to the effect that there
would be trouble bred of the expedition, and he closed his harangue in
the following manner, as we stood on the South Bridge, where our ways
parted:

"The Carmichael man has no judgment either for your affairs or his own.
His heart may be all right, but he's got no common sense, and a man
like that is little better than a fool."

CHAPTER II

I GO ON A CRUISE AND FIND A HIDDEN TREASURE

In spite of Hugh Pitcairn we were off the following Monday, going out
of Leith, with a clear sky, a stiff breeze, and six men of our own
feather, caring little where our destination lay, if the cards turned
well, the drink held plenty, and the ocean rolled beneath us. North we
went; north till the s